2of4Bragga goes over drills with his players during practice this week in preparation for the Owls’ season-opening three-game series against Rhode Island starting today at Reckling Park.Photo: Elizabeth Conley, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

4of4Matt Bragga came to Rice from Tennessee Tech, where last year he guided his team to a school-record 53 wins, top-10 ranking and NCAA super regional berth.Photo: Elizabeth Conley, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

When the Rice baseball coaching job opened up last May, Matt Bragga was hesitant to pursue it.

His Tennessee Tech team finished the 2018 regular season with an Ohio Valley Conference-record 53 wins while leading the nation in runs and batting average. The Golden Eagles rose as high as 10th in the national rankings and earned the school’s first trip to an NCAA super regional.

But at a school 900 miles east of Houston in Cookeville, Tenn., Bragga doubted he was on Rice’s radar.

Joe Karlgaard, the school’s director of athletics, had become familiar with Bragga through his work on the Division I Baseball Committee. He’d heard from fellow administrators about the way Bragga’s players conducted themselves. He’d seen the offensive numbers produced by a team that set single-season school records for victories, runs, hits, homers, RBIs, slugging percentage and walks.

“I started looking at programs that had consistently done well,” Karlgaard said. “He obviously showed an ability to do more with less. … He just made it work and really built the program.”

Bragga, 46, started playing baseball around age 4 and quickly became a student of the game. As a young catcher growing up in Jefferson, Ohio, he looked up to former Yankees catcher Thurman Munson, who hailed from Akron. As he got older, Bragga read books by Charley Lau and studied the hitting form and techniques of Don Mattingly and George Brett.

“I loved baseball from the time I can remember, and it’s all I did,” Bragga said. “I was a guy who wasn’t as fast as other guys. Back in the day, my arm wasn’t as good as it ended up being, and so I had to find other ways to help my team.”

Bragga, whose father Larry coached him in Little League, organized neighborhood Wiffle ball games and tournaments at his grandparents’ house. He grew up on the APBA baseball board game, replaying an entire Yankees season.

That passion pushed him to be a better hitter. His shortcomings drove him to develop a more comprehensive approach to the game.

He internalized the subtleties of the sport. He observed the way Pete Rose flew into third base for a triple before jumping up and clapping his hands to energize his teammates.

“I wanted my team to be excited. As a catcher growing up, I knew the other guys on the field were looking at me the entire game,” Bragga said. “I better bring energy and enthusiasm and excitement and passion and confidence to help this team. I took it seriously. I did that from the time I was 7 years old.”

Replacing an institution

Bragga considered himself a one-tool prospect when he was coming out of high school, but that was enough to earn him a walk-on spot at Kentucky. As a junior, he led the Southeastern Conference in home runs. His .408 SEC batting average as a senior wasn’t enough to get him drafted, but it did merit a free-agent contract with the Cincinnati Reds.

It was at Kentucky where Bragga began his two greatest commitments. The catcher decided he wanted to coach for a career. He also met his future wife, Elisa, who eventually transferred to Alabama, where she ran track and cross country.

“I always felt like that was a real gift he had,” Larry Bragga, who helps manage Rice’s team, said of his son. “He had this ability to see the game and help develop kids to be the best they can be.”

Matt Bragga began his head coaching career at Alabama’s Bevill State Community College, where his team set a school record for wins in his second year. After four seasons, he became an assistant coach at Birmingham Southern College. He spent 3½ years there before going to Tennessee Tech.

“Matt built a nationally recognized program at Tennessee Tech,” wrote the school’s director of athletics, Mark Wilson, in an email. “He did it by recruiting young men who were excellent institutional and program fits. He developed them as players during their time as Golden Eagles, which led to outstanding programmatic success.”

Bragga’s 446 wins are the second most in Tennessee Tech history. A four-time Ohio Valley Conference Coach of the Year, he led the Golden Eagles to three NCAA Tournament appearances and won six OVC championships in the past 10 years.

Now Bragga succeeds an institution in Wayne Graham, who at 82 and in his 27th season at Rice last year failed to get the Owls to an NCAA regional for the first time since 1994. Graham won a national championship in 2003 but hadn’t gotten the Owls into a super regional since 2013. They finished 26-31-2 in 2018.

“Rebuilding a program is phenomenally fun, but the negative is not being able to win a championship right now. It’s like starting a program anew, a little far-fetched,” said Bragga. “This one is much more exciting because everyone wants to win. When you walk into a program and you say, ‘Huh, we have Matt Canterino out there. Huh, we’ve got Addison Moss out there. Huh, we have Garrett Gayle out there.’ You’re like, ‘Hey, this is different!’ It’s also very similar to what I just came from.”

Stressing the positives

Initially, Bragga had dreams of coaching in the SEC — a goal he abandoned three years ago while letting the chips fall where they may. At Rice, he and his players are determined to achieve new streaks and milestones.

“To me, this job is every bit as a good as an SEC program,” Bragga said. “We can win right away, and no one expects that more than me.

“I believe in these guys. I believe in the way they’re working. We’re not there yet. We’re going to hit a little adversity. If we lose a couple games in a row, how we respond to that will define our season.”

For players, Bragga provides an ameliorating presence.

“(Graham) is the best baseball mind I’ve ever been around,” senior pitcher Ben Schragger said. “(But) his coaching style was, ‘Here’s how we’re going to do it. Here’s how we’ve done it the last 15 years. We’re going to do it the exact same way.’

“There was always a little bit of pressure because you knew he was always thinking along the negative lines, whereas coach Bragga is trying to get the positives out and having you learn from those positives. (Bragga’s staff) is open to a lot of things: ‘What if I did it this way because of this reason?’ They’re really open to that, and that’s really important for a team with 21 or 22 pitchers on it who are all bred differently.”

Assistant coach Paul Janish played for Graham on Rice’s 2003 championship team and joined his staff last year. He and former Louisiana Tech pitching coach Cory Barton — the 2018 Conference USA Assistant Baseball Coach of the Year — serve as Bragga’s deputies.

“It’s beneficial to show the kids exactly what he wants. … I think it expedites the process a little bit in terms of them grasping exactly what he’s trying to convey,” Janish said. “One thing I love about coach Bragga is he’s a very pro-minded guy in terms of offense. He likes to swing the bat; he likes to hit the ball. He’s not as stereotypical as the old-school college offense, so to speak.”

In light of Graham’s accomplishments, Karlgaard was keen on handing the program to a coach with significant experience. He’s excited to see the new coach put his own stamp on the Owls’ program.

For Bragga, after years of hoping to coach in the conference in which he played, he feels the timing at Rice is just right. His experiences helped him grow as a person and mature as a leader. He likens his approach to that of Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney: Putting players first yields winning results later.

“You better win, or you don’t have a job in this profession,” Bragga said. “But you have to put the love for your team and your players above wins and losses, and that’s something I don’t think I did good enough even 12 years ago.”

Glynn A. Hill covers Rice and Houston-area college athletics for the Houston Chronicle, joining the paper in September 2015. A graduate of Howard University, he previously worked internships at organizations including the Associated Press and USA Today.